


The Whole Thing was Leroy's Fault

by tehfanglyfish



Category: The Mighty Boosh (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-10
Updated: 2015-10-10
Packaged: 2018-04-25 18:02:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4970929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tehfanglyfish/pseuds/tehfanglyfish
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Leroy introduces Howard and Vince to the online fad of World of Warcraft. Pre-slash is there if you squint. None of the characters are mine. I wrote this in 2010 for Booshbattle on LJ, forgot about it, and then found it while looking through an old hard drive.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Whole Thing was Leroy's Fault

The whole thing was Leroy’s fault, really. After all it was Leroy who had arrived at the shop right at closing, bearing a wrapped present for Howard. That particular evening, though, Howard had left work a bit early so as to make it on time to Jazzercise. (Howard had, of course, started early in the shop that morning, taking stock before opening. Howard wasn’t one to just skive off work.) Vince accepted Leroy’s delivery, happy that Howard would have a surprise, but also feeling a bit jealous and let down since Leroy only had the one box which was addressed quite clearly to Howard. (Vince, as we all know, rather enjoys receiving presents.) 

It took all of Vince’s self-control not to open Howard’s present. Actually, that’s not true. It took all of Vince’s self-control, along with some rather meaningful looks from Naboo to ensure that Howard’s box remained securely wrapped. The seventeen minutes between Leroy’s departure and Howard’s arrival home were sheer agony for Vince and he couldn’t help but blurt out “Leroy brought you a present” as soon as Howard walked in the door.

“Well aren’t you going to open it?” Vince asked. The suspense was really starting to get to him. Howard had been home a full three minutes and he hadn’t even picked up the box.

“In a minute, little man,” Howard replied. Truthfully Howard was bit nervous to open it. No one got Howard presents, especially not at random times of the year. It certainly wasn’t Christmas and Howard’s birthday was still a few months away. Deep in the pit of his stomach, Howard worried that this might be some kind of cruel joke.

Still, Howard Moon was a man of action, and as such he couldn’t just leave the box unopened, especially since Vince seemed close to hyperventilating. Howard carried it to their room and, after sitting on his bed, began to carefully open it, making sure not to tear the paper as he did so. 

“It’s nice and we can reuse it,” Howard explained as Vince gave him a positively exasperated look.

After finally managing to get the paper off of the box, Howard reached inside and pulled out...

“What is that?” asked Vince.

“It’s disgusting,” offered Naboo.

Howard just stared at it. It was clearly a plushy of some sort, but not readily identifiable. It was a kind of bluish-green color, with orange spike-things on its back. It had red hands and feet. It was definitely unlike any animal Howard had encountered during his tenure at the Zooniverse. A card was pinned to its chest, which Howard read.

“According to Leroy,” Howard began, “it’s a murloc.”

“What’s that?” Vince asked, looking even more confused.

“Well, the card says it’s a…” Howard trailed off.

“A what?” 

“Never you mind.” 

Vince wasn’t going to be blown off that easily. He lunged himself at Howard, prying the card from his fingers. The momentary contact made Howard slightly uncomfortable, but not in a bad way. Howard quickly pushed those feelings aside. Now was not the time. Vince scanned the card for a moment and then snickered.

“Leroy says,” Vince began.

“Leave it, Vince,” Howard warned.

“Leroy says that it’s a creature from a video game called World of Warcraft,” Vince continued, “apparently it’s a kind of,” Vince momentarily lost his composure and cracked up. After a moment he regained control and continued reading. 

“It’s a kind of ‘aggressive scaly man-fish.’”

Vince, Naboo, and Bollo collapsed into fits of laughter. Howard felt extremely uncomfortable and, unaware that he was even doing it, started to give himself a Chinese burn. Vince grabbed his hand to stop him, and gave him a friendly smile. The not unpleasant, yet still uncomfortable feelings momentarily asserted themselves again.

“It’s just a plushy, Howard,” he said. “Leroy’s just having a laugh. Don’t worry about it.”

“I’ve heard of that game,” Naboo said, finally calming down. “Tony Harrison won’t shut up about it. Apparently all he does these days is play it. He’s supposedly a kind of cow shaman or something. Probably just likes having legs.”

“We should try it, Howard,” Vince suggested. “See what these, um, murlocs are like.”

Howard wasn’t really into the idea and said as much, but Vince wasn’t to be deterred. 

“Come on, Howard,” he said, “it’ll be fun. Anyway, it’ll give us something to do together now that they’ve cancelled Colobus the Crab.”

To further press the issue, Vince gave Howard The Look, the one that Howard always gave in to, the one that made Howard’s stomach somersault ever so slightly.

“All right, little man,” Howard said, “we’ll give it a go, but just long enough to see these, er, murlocs. Then I’ve got to go straighten Stationery Village.”

Vince brought out his laptop and they proceeded to download and install the game. This took quite a while, actually, and it ended up not being until the next evening after work that they could log on. They decided, after much deliberation, that at least initially it would be better to create just one character and share it. Howard felt a bit self-conscious working the controls and anyway, Naboo made it perfectly clear that his computer was off limits, leaving them with only Vince’s laptop.

After looking through all of the different races and classes offered in the game, Vince decided that they should play a Blood Elf paladin. (“Just look at the hairstyles, Howard.”) Howard would rather have selected a human warrior as an expression of his inner nature as a man of action, but as he had no intention of seriously playing the game, he decided to humor Vince, even agreeing when Vince informed him that they just had to name their character Garynuman, and they both laughed when the animated man asked “Don’t you wish your girlfriend was hot like me?”

“Genius,” Vince exclaimed.

Vince and Howard spent the next few hours running around a fake world, fighting fake lynxes and skeletons and other assorted animated creatures, taking turns controlling their character. Howard was rather enjoying himself until he came across the murloc village and managed to agro all of the murlocs. Not only did Garynuman die for the first time, but after a few remarks from Vince about Howard’s tendency to get chased by scaly men-fish, Howard decided that he’d had enough video games for one night and went to organize his jazz records. Vince continued to play, though, and that night as Howard drifted off to sleep, he couldn’t help but be annoyed at the fact that their room was illuminated by the glow of the laptop screen. By the end of the week, the electric glow no longer fazed Howard as Vince played late every night.

Over the next few weeks Howard, Naboo, and Bollo noticed several changes in Vince’s behavior. At first the changes were a minor. Vince arrived at work a bit later than usual, but not so late as to really cause alarm. His clothes were a bit rumpled, but his hair remained immaculate. Still, Howard didn’t worry. He just figured that Vince’s lack of care in dressing himself was likely indicative of a new style. He and Vince didn’t really spend quite as much time together crimping at night, but Howard blamed that on all the time he’d been spending at Jazzercise. It took a lot of work to keep his legs slim and youthful.

It was about a month after that first night that they’d tried World of Warcraft that Howard really began to get worried. Howard had gone to ask Vince, who was firmly planted in front of his laptop, if he’d like some pancakes. Vince could never resist pancakes and as they hadn’t been spending all that much time together lately, Howard thought this might bring them together for a bit. 

“Could I have toast instead?” Vince asked. 

Howard wasn’t sure if he was more surprised by the fact that Vince had rejected his pancake offer or that Vince was wearing a headset that clearly crushed his hair. The thing even had a microphone on it.

“Alright,” said Howard, feeling a bit dejected that they wouldn’t be having pancakes together. “I’ll get it for you.”

“Cheers,” Vince said, never taking his eyes from the screen.

That was only the beginning. Increasingly Vince stopped talking to Howard, Naboo, and Bollo at night, instead opting to spend the night prattling on with his new online friends through the microphone attached to his head. Howard wasn’t too sure what they were talking about, but whatever it was sounded serious.

“It’s a raiding guild, Howard,” Vince tried to explain one night. “We team up to take down these ferocious monsters, only it’s pretty serious business. If I don’t show up, they’ll throw me out.”

“You’ve been on all night every night for the past two months. Surely they’ll let you have one night with a friend. Anyway, what do you get from killing these monsters?”

“Gear,” said Vince.

“Gear?”

“It’s like clothes with powers,” Vince explained. “Only they keep updating the game with new gear so you’re always needing to kill new monsters to get new clothes. I tried to explain to them that me and you’d planned to watch the Colobus the Crab rerun marathon tonight, but they need me Howard. And if I don’t show they really will throw me out.”

Howard felt dejected, but told Vince it was alright. They could watch TV another night. And really, the whole thing seemed to make sense. Vince had found yet another way to obsess over clothes with a group of extremely shallow people. 

Still, Howard couldn’t help but feel that he was losing his best friend to a group of animated assholes. And in the few hours that Vince was asleep and the laptop was unoccupied, Howard spent some time searching the internet, looking for clues to Vince’s new behavior. Howard learned he wasn’t the only one out there who as though he’d lost someone to this game. The term “WoW Widow” seemed quite applicable to his current situation.

Whatever, thought Howard, Vince is just going through another phase.

What Howard really hadn’t been prepared for was the day that Vince let his hair go. It was a morning a couple of weeks after the failed attempt at TV night. Vince stumbled into work a full four hours late, wearing his pajama bottoms and a plain white t-shirt, with completely flat and unstyled hair. Howard suspected Vince hadn’t even combed it.

“All right, little man?” Howard asked, trying desperately to hide his shock.

“Oh yeah,” Vince responded, “it was just a late night. I only got off ten minutes before I came down here.”

The next day Vince came in a full five hours late and the day after he didn’t show at all. The following week Howard ran the Nabootique alone, and although the stock was thoroughly inventoried and Stationery Village had never been more pristine, things were going horribly wrong. For all of his strengths as an organizer, Howard just couldn’t move merchandise. Sales tanked even lower than usual.

After a week and a half of financial stagnation, Naboo had finally had enough.

“I’m putting an end to this,” he told Howard as he and Bollo left early one afternoon.

About an hour later Howard heard a stream of expletives coming from the upstairs. Vince ran down into the shop, screaming about a nonexistent internet connection and something called a boss fight. He then went back upstairs, slamming the bedroom door behind him. When Howard went up to check on Vince at closing, he found Vince curled up in his bed, deep in a coma-like sleep. Vince slept for a full twenty-six hours.

“I had the broadband shut off,” Naboo told Howard that night. “We couldn’t afford it really, what with the falling sales revenues. Anyway, we’ve got dial-up now.”

When Vince did finally wake up, he tried to connect to WoW again, but found that the lag was just too much.

“Slows down my casting time,” he told Howard. “It was so bad they kicked Garynuman out of Royal Legion of Light.”

Howard had no idea what this meant, but he nodded sympathetically.

“Anyway,” Vince went on, “I’ve cooled on that game. Let’s go out. Only let me fix my hair first. I look like shit.”

Howard, who normally preferred quiet nights in, was more than happy to oblige.


End file.
